


To Write Love On Her Arms

by AgentSkyeMorse



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, its been 4 months since my last post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-01 12:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8624542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentSkyeMorse/pseuds/AgentSkyeMorse
Summary: The drawing is the same as the one on her own arm; a stick figure bird with a weird looking moon, fading away after three days of remaining unfinished.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive me readers. For I have sinned: It's been 4 months since my last post.  
> Also, it was going to be longer and encapsulate the change from Skye to Daisy but this felt like a good place to end it.

Mary Poots grows up with mostly bare arms. There are the occasional notes or idle drawings, once, when she's seven, all her nails turn black of their own accord and even the tips of her hair turn a little blue which no one can figure out because even a Soulmate wouldn't cause hair and nail changes. Mostly her arms are bare, when she's 12 the person - her Soulmate - scribbles a Happy Birthday and a little balloon on the inside of her left wrist and Mary forgets to breathe for a moment because... her birthday is in April... well, the birthday the nuns had assigned her was in April, but it was currently July.

Mary is so enraptured with the words that she forgets to write a thank you on her own skin and the words slowly fade over the next few hours and days. July 2nd. Her birthday is July second, so that must mean she's 13, not 12!

When Skye is 15 on a seemingly random day the word appears in large, bold, attention demanding print on her left arm; TATTOO? Her Soulmate wanted a tattoo? It was a common curtesy to ask before making any permanent alterations that would copy over the Soul bond. Before Skye could ask what, the ink started again, fine and delicate this time as it slowly formed a bird with a daisy chain crown on its head, and the words of 'behind left ear'. Somewhere it wouldn't readily be seen on either of them. Skye's consent was followed by smiley faces and thank you's and promises of one day getting to see it in person.

By the time she's 18, three more tattoos have their way onto Skye's skin. Each one on the same day. A Supergirl symbol (Supergirl, not Superman, even though they're the same symbol, Supergirl is way cooler) when she was 16. A series of dots and dashes that reads out 'don't die out there' in Morse code that makes Skye's stomach quest when she finally takes the time to translate it. Because it can't be a coincidence that the dots and dashes that appear when she's 17 are directly parallel to the marks on her own skins. She didn't know that things like that transferred over the bond as well! The last tattoo is a pair of names that appear when she's 18 (that's also when she realises they were on the same day each year) and a date from a few months earlier. Skye tries to think back to that date, to find significance in the writings on her arm from that day.

She couldn't remember the exact day, but it had been around the time that her Soulmate had asked Skye to tell them something happy and she had spun a fanciful tale of magic and love and happy endings before her Soulmate admitted that her parents had recently died and she'd just come from the funeral.

Skye had been in the position of not knowing the feeling of ever having parents, so not knowing the pain of losing them, and not knowing how to comfort someone so import to her who she didn't even know.

She could only guess that the names now on her forearm were her Soulmates parents.

When she's 22 the tattoos are covered by her Soulmates hand (not removed though) and the tips of her hair turn a dark black just like the odd occurrence from her childhood. The idle drawings and random notes all but stop for three months.

After three months, tingling on her skin, the feel of kisses and touches transferred through an unnaturally strong bond, lets her feel letters of a foreign hand tracing on her Soulmate.

Skye's blood runs cold and she wishes the bond wasn't so strong that she could feel it without having met them. A proposal. Her Soulmate was being proposed to. The answer wasn't on her skin, but the uncomfortable twist in her heart told her all she needed to know.

5 months later, not long after Skye's 23rd birthday, she can squint at her ring finger and concentrate and she swear she can nearly see the impression of a wedding band on her own hand.

If her Soulmate is allowed to get married (apparently they decided for both of them that their bond wouldn't be romantic) then Skye tries not to let herself feel too guilty about her relationship with Miles. The writing on her skin is almost nonexistent by that point anyway, to the point that she could almost pretend she didn't even have a Soulmate if it weren't for the tattoos that come and go with cover-up and the ever changing colour of her hair and nails. Her hair stays dark for a long time before lightening back to its natural colour, but her nails change nearly weekly with her Soulmates whim.

Three weeks after Skye's 24th birthday the tightness around her chest that started with the proposal reaches an epitome before releasing itself and she doesn't know what to think of that until the words start coming again.

First it's just one word. Ass. Divorce. Idiot. Sorry. So many words written and then immediately scrubbed out before eventually settling on a belated Happy Birthday with a little pink heart that stays for a week straight (the words fade, but the heart keeps re-inking).

In October of that year Skye lets herself get caught by S.H.I.E.L.D and this time it's her doing that the writing and drawings stop.

Simmons notes the tattoos on her skin as Soulmate Transference on her official S.H.I.E.L.D file, and May of all people to have a reaction when she finds out, commenting on the bird behind her ear. Mockingbird, is all she's says after seeing it and it makes her wonder for brief moment if it could be the older woman before dismissing it. There was no way her Soulmate was S.H.I.E.L.D.

She thinks in some weird way that Ward thinks she might be attracted to him when she offers to talk and have a drink with him.

After Italy, after Ian Quinn, after being shot, revived and healed with the miracle drug Skye takes a moment in the med pod to look at her arm and its not just her am. Nearly all her visible skin is covered in messages, questions, pleas, demands. All with the same theme; is she alright? Skye idly wonders if the bullet scars with transfer through the bond like she thinks the ones on her thighs did.

HYDRA happens.

Ward being HYDRA happens.

It's three weeks before she gets a chance to see words on her skin begging her to stay safe whoever and wherever she is, and it makes her curious about if her Soulmate might actually be S.H.I.E.L.D. Hopefully good S.H.I.E.L.D and not HYDRA.

Her hair goes dark again.

At 25 Skye spends most of her time training with May or on missions with the English merc, Hunter, or trying to decipher the weird code Coulson gave her, or sometimes even doing all three. When she does get a spare moment she draws half a picture on her left arm (they're both right handed) and waits for her Soulmate to fill in the other half with their own interpretation.

One time she idly draws half of the S.H.I.E.L.D logo just to see what her Soulmate will, and after three hours of waiting with no second half she gives up. When she wakes the next morning the eagle had been filled in along with a note that it needed to be gone by 8:00 am. Skye didn't know if that was a confirmation that her Soulmate was S.H.I.E.L.D, but she complied and spent from 7:30 scrubbing her arm until it was raw and the self-written ink was gone.

Skye is in the middle of a far less talented picture of a mockingbird flying through stars and the moon (really, she's only gotten as far as a stick figure bird and a weird looking moon) when Simmons returns from her undercover Op.

The brunette that brings her scientist home introduces herself as Bobbi Morse, but its not until two days later that they get a night to unwind as a group. Agent Morse's hair is blonde after the first day and Skye has had to listen to Hunter rant and rave about the blonde who is apparently his ex wife.

Skye doesn't notice she didn't finish or remove the picture on her arm.

Drinks and relaxing with the Agents is nice, until Morse decides it's. Little warm in the common area and takes her jacket off.

May is the one who points out the markings on the blondes arm with a 'nice ink, Morse' that is clearly sarcastic and said around a smirk. But, it draws Skye's eyes to the blondes arm and her heart almost stops at the sight.

May so knew the whole time!

The drawing is the same as the one on her own arm; a stick figure bird with a weird looking moon, fading away after three days of remaining unfinished.

Skye's breath catches, and her eyes dart from her arm to the blondes, matching each print to her own. She's about to demand answers, demand to know if this is some kind of sick joke when letters start forming on the back of her hand.

Bobbi is sitting on the other side of the room with a marker in hand, the same word on the back of her own hand, still glistening with wet ink.

"Hi." Bobbi's voice is barely a murmur across the room, but if sounds deafening to Skye. They slowly start to gravitate towards each other and Skye can't believe she's there. She's really there.

"Hi." Skye mimics, this is her. This is the person who dyed their hair in some sort of goth pass when she was 10, who had four tattoos, who had gotten married (to Hunter, Skye realised), whose parents had died. This was her Soulmate.

"Can I...?" The question is soft, hesitant, a gentle gesture of permission to touch her that Skye give a half nod of consent. Two days. They've been on the same base for two days and she hadn't noticed. Bobbi's fingers are gentle as they cradle her face, making her skin tingle and the world could be imploding around them for all Skye cares, but she's here, her Soulmate is here and that's all that matters.

Bobbi's kiss tastes like cheap beer and strawberries.


	2. Chapter 2

Bobbi Morse is in kindergarten, playing happily with finger paints and making a mess everywhere when her fingers tingle. First it's her fingers, and then it spreads. It takes about three seconds for Bobbi to go from marvelling at the tingles to gaping at the markings that start to appear on her skin. The strange markings make her giggle and she tries to trace them on her own arm with her fingers still covered in paint.

When her teacher spots her, Miss Claire starts to scold her for not painting on the paper before she gets a glimpse of the neat markings under the small blondes paint.

Bobbi's parents pick her up early that day and they take her for ice cream before explaining that every new baby gets a marking made on them when they're born to assertion if a Soulbond exists. Bobbi doesn't really understand, especially when they tell her that a baby somewhere in Asia (they think it's Asia because of the marks on her skin) has the same fingerpaint on their skin that Bobbi did to herself.

Ten months after the writing had appeared, and long since faded, words write themselves onto Bobbi's arm asking who she is in neat, black print that her parents say was definitely not her Soulmate. Even Bobbi knows it couldn't have been her 10 month old Soulmate, just like whoever wrote on their arm would know it's not Bobbi when her Mom writes back on the blondes arm underneath the other words.

The colouring the appears on her skin still fascinates Bobbi, but she's still learning to read so she loses interest quickly when she can't read all the words her Mom and the stranger are writing.

Bobbi's Mom is gently helping her wash her arms of the ink when she tells her that it's important that she doesn't write 'sensitive information' through the Soulbond... whatever that means. Bobbi agrees even though she doesn't understand, and then watches in wonder as the rest of the letters disappear from her skin.

When Bobbi is 10 her parents indulge her and let her paint her nail black and dye her hair blue (well, blue streaks anyway) but they're not cool enough to let her get a piercing other than the ones already in her ears.

Bobbi is nearly a teenager when she first notices the marks.

They're not pen marks or paint or anything else similar.

They're bruises.

Except they don't hurt and she has no memory of ever being hurt there

Bobbi is 17 when she first goes against her promise not to write sensitive or personal information about her Soulmate. There are bruises on her skin that she never received, and an angry red mark on her arm that was never done to her, and she will never forget the fate of July 2nd, so she tells her Soulmate, her injured and pained other half, a simple Happy Birthday.

The words fade without receiving a reply.

Bobbi's 20th birthday (she's about 90% sure her Soulmate is 15 turning 16 in two months) her friends take her out for a night of bad decisions in Mexico. Izzy and Jane start writing on her arm before she can stop them; Izzy writes the word TATTOO in large black letters and Jane starts drawing a bird next to it as they talk over each other about positioning, completely ignoring the blondes half drunk protests as they decide it should be behind her left ear (weird, but okay). Her Soulmate writes back after nearly half with their consent and apparent the Hartley sisters care more about her Soulmates consent than her own as they drag her off to get a tattoo.

Bobbi's 21st birthday is celebrated with a Supergirl tattoo on her hip that the tattoo promises to kiss the hurt away (she turns him down in favour of the question on her arm about Superman, everyone knows Supergirl is way cooler).

Bobbi is getting her regular bi-annual mandatory check up for the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. When the doctor questions her about the marks. She's confused, especially when the doctor recommends she see a shrink.

Thin red scars litter the inside of her thighs.

Thighs. Because wrists are too obvious.

She knows it wasn't her, and her memory brings up the bruises that appeared when she was younger that weren't hers. Her fingers itch with too many questions, too many demands for if her Soulmate was in that dark and twisted place. Was there anything she could do? She'd never been an overly present Soulmate, remembering and heeding what her mother had told her as a child not to reveal too much over the bond. Had she been to distant? Did her Soulmate think she was neglecting them?

Bobbi felt sick to her stomach.

She didn't even notice the tears slipping from her eyes as she watched another red mark appear; red and angry and larger than all the others, though it would eventually fade as well.

-.. --- -. .----. -   
-.. .. .   
\--- ..- -   
\- .... . .-. .

Bobbi didn't have the guts to confront her Soulmate outright, but the tattoo (done by a tattooist who had stared at her for a long time with pitying eyes and she didn't care to correct him that they weren't her scars) would hopefully be a reminder that she was there. Always.

No more red marks appeared after her 22nd birthday.

Her parents died that same year, a car crash on a rainy night as they drove home from dinner.

She asks her Soulmate to tell her something happy, they write to her about magic and hope and love and it makes her smile a little after the funeral to see the tiny letters surrounded with smiley face pictures and hearts and flowers. A spot of happiness on her skin after the depression of the last few days.

Her last tattoo is her parents' names and the day they died.

Bobbi throws herself into her work after that, training, missions, undercover, reports, research. It all consumes her until Izzy and Jane drag her to a bar and force her to relax for a few hours. She meets Lance Hunter.

Lance is charming, and kind of an ass, but she finds it weirdly endearing.

Lance is bad decisions and sleepy Sunday mornings.

Lance is promises of the future and sneaking out in the early mornings because she's late for a briefing.

Lance is kisses on bare skin, and a question traced hesitantly under his touch.

Lance is saying yes and saying I Do and justifying it with talking herself into thinking her Soulmate could be a platonic bond. (Even she doesn't believe her argument, but she loves Lance and isn't that enough?)

Lance is screaming and fighting and slamming doors and frustration and anger and so many other things.

Lance is getting drunk after she signs the divorce papers, and words written messily on her arm as she remembers July 2nd was a few weeks ago.

Bobbi throws herself back into work, and this time Izzy lets her wallow on her own for a while and let's her find her way back to herself on her own. It takes two months, a gunshot wound in the thigh, and a couple of one night stands, but she gets there eventually.

Agent Morse is called to Commander Hill's office one day, she's told about an elite team that's being put together that she's on the shortlist for. She's asked all sorts of questions about her personal past (things she knows are in her file) and her thoughts on family and teams. It's all very confusing, but Commander Hill tells her that she did fine even though she doesn't end up on the team.

Bobbi wakes up one day a few months later with a searing pain in her gut and she looks to her stomach to find two angry red marks that fluctuate between vibrant and faded to near nothingness.

Her Soulmate!

The words she writes litter everywhere her pen can reach, and Bobbi wishes she knew more about her Soulmate, so she might be able to actually find them, go to them, help them. Her heart races and plummets and stops altogether a couple of times as she watches the marks on her stomach come in and out of existence on her own skin, and she never receives a reply to her demands and pleas that she writes.

Everything goes to shit in less than 2 weeks.

S.H.I.E.L.D falls.

HYRDA is S.H.I.E.L.D.

Bobbi feels dirty when she finds out.

One of the last things Fury does before he 'dies' is gives her a mission to sink the Iliad if they can't take it back. Then he tells her to report to a set of coordinates because someone that might interest her greatly will be there. It piques her curiosity to say the least.

Bobbi doesn't sink the Iliad.

She does send a message to her Soulmate begging them to stay safe.

It takes nearly a month before she makes it to the coordinates Fury gave her with Izzy, Mack and Idaho.

Coulson is alive.

Coulson is 'Director'.

Coulson sends her on an Undercover mission, but she has a feeling that he wasn't the person that Fury was talking about.

Undercover work is never easy. Undercover work at HYDRA taxes her very Soul.

The only thing that keeps her sane when she's in the belly of the beast is the drawings on her arm. Half a drawing from her Soulmate, usually something happy and bright that she fills in the other half of. Her Soulmate draws half of the S.H.I.E.L.D logo one night and she stares at it for a long time, wondering if her Soulmate had managed to get themselves entangled in S.H.I.E.L.D as well, hoping that if they did they were on the good side, and wouldn't hate her when RealSHIELD would eventually reveal themselves to the public.

Bobbi draws the other half of the eagle, then ten minutes later remembers she's in HYDRA right now, and adds a note asking for it to be gone by the time she starts work in the morning.

The dirty feeling lasts the entire time she's undercover, and she suspects the deeds she did to maintain the cover will always haunt her.

When Bobbi gets back to Coulson's base it's to Simmons' hero worship, Hunter's screeching, Mack telling her Izzy and Idaho are dead, and May tells her there's someone she'll want to meet there.

It's two days before she gets a night with the close knit group that is Coulson's main team. Mack, a pair of scientists, Trip, May, and a pretty little Hacker turned Agent named Skye.

Bobbi is on her 3rd beer when May mentions the drawing on her arm around a smirk. Drawing? She looks to her arm to find a crudely drawn bird and a crooked moon that is definitely the work of her Soulmate.

A gasp across the room attracts her attention to the pretty little hacker who is frantically looking between her own arm and Bobbi's.

Bobbi swipes a marker off a nearby table and writes in careful letters on the back of her hand, her heart racing and her hand shaking.

Fury said there was someone here for her. May said there was someone here for her.

Across the room the same letters formed with crystal clarity on the back of Skye's hand as well.

Finding Skye is easily the best moment of her life, the younger woman tastes like everything she'd ever wanted and so much more.

It took Bobbi months to admit love to Hunter, it takes two weeks before she and Skye fall into bed together and she whispers the words against heated skin.

"I Love you." And maybe they're truest words she's ever spoken.

Skye waits until the morning after, blinking her hazel-brown eyes open to see Bobbi staring at her in wonder. Her words are more hesitant, conditioned by years of having them thrown back at her ungratefully. "I Love you."

Skye likes to kiss her way over the Supergirl tattoo on her hip. Bobbi trails her lips of the scars that litter the other woman's body. Gunshots and self inflicted.

When Ward kidnaps Skye she writes assurances on her arm.

Bobbi promises to come for her.

In San Juan, Bobbi's skin turns black, and the other marks in her skin fade in and out of existence as Hunter watches on. Bobbi can barely stand, terrified and nearly collapsing from sobs because she only just got Skye, she couldn't lose her. Not now, not ever.

Bobbi has never been so happy to see someone in quarantine as she is when she sees Skye. Alive.

"I Love you, Rockstar." Her kiss won't reach through the glass, so she settles for her hands pressed against the cool barrier.

"Love you, Bobbi." Skye's smile is a little strained, and there's pain in her eyes, but it's her Skye. Not matter what anyone tries to say or do, it's her Skye and that's all she cared about.


End file.
